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Sunday, 25 September 2011

A decommissioned NASA satellite, the biggest piece of US space junk to fall in 30 years, has crash-landed but the precise location is not yet known, the US space agency said early Saturday.
To know more :- Satellite landed, exact site not yet known: NASA

Some times your internet becomes intolerably slow after long hours of browsing.Then you my need to clear cache using a handy tool like bleachbit.
After that you may feel like restarting network service alone without restarting your computer.

There are two ways to restart you network service:-
==>Through gnome-terminal :- You should open a new terminal by either right clicking on your nautilus[window manager/file explorer] and "opening in Terminal" or by pressing "Alt+F2" and typing in "gnome-terminal". After entering the terminal{ unfortunately you cannot catch a train or flight here :-) } you need to type in "sudo /etc/init.d/network restart". It will prompt you you to type in your admin password and the terminal will restart your service. Once the process is finished you can close the terminal

==>Through command launch window:-
On keying in the "Alt+F2" a launch window will appear.There you can type in "gnomesu /etc/init.d/network restart". It will prompt you you to type in your admin password and the network service will restart in the background.The advantage of former approach is you will get to know what your system is actually doing through the log being displayed in the terminal.In this approach you just assume that after a few seconds your network service would have restarted.I can confirm this by continuously refreshing a webpage in my browser.The browser will suddenly be unable to load the page.Then after sometime the internet will be "UP" again

The other day i was riding my bike when suddenly i felt that i had reached half way point to my destination quite quickly and felt that i had actually warped from one location to another.I had similar experiences before.Then i realized that there are certain coincidences when this happens:-
==>The route taken by me a often one which i would have used many times.
==>There would be fair amount of traffic on the roads and i would be solely concentrating on the vehicles and road ahead rather than having a glimpse at the various landmarks dotting the route.
This leads me to a conclusion that my muscles have automatically tuned to the particular route and then body automatically turns the vehicles at appropriate turns purely based on muscle memory which is quite astounding. On the other hand if one needs to take the correct turns on roads which one travels through, less often then one would be more watchful so as to not miss a turn therby missing the portal gate to the wormhole :-)

Saturday, 24 September 2011

About "Artha":-
Artha is good offline thesaurus/dictionary tool .It is easy to use and also has great features.It can give you not only definitions of words,but also its antonyms,synonyms,derivatives of the word.It has a toggle button which can be used to switch between simple and advanced mode.The later option is cool to use to learn more about the word you are searching for.Also if you click on any word on the tool,the tool "looks-up" those words too.

How To get it:-

==>Use the search tool @ www.software.opensuse.org and search for "artha".You can search for tool for older versions of openSUSE like 11.3
==>It would be available in "Education" repository
==>Click on "1-Click Install"and the YaST tool will ask for admin password.
You need not worry about your underlying system architecture.YaST will automatically choose the best version for you.
==>YaST will add the required repositories and then after finishing the installation
==>You can alternatively click on repository link and download "rpms" from the repository and install them using "zypper".

How To use it:-
==>You can launch YaST from "Applications" in GNOME 3.X and relevant main menus in older versions.
==>The tool will sit in your notification tray.
==>By default the tool will open the definitions for any word you have selected in any tool be it a browser or application like "gedit" by pressing the key combination :- "Ctrl+Alt+W"
==>If you turn on "notify" option by right clicking on the application's icon in the notification tray,it will show the definitions as notifications instead of opening up the entire application.

Application Full Screen

Application Showing Definition as notification in GNOME 3.X

How to Start Artha along with your OS?

==>If you want to start the application along with GNOME then you need to add it to "gnome-session-properties".
==>Press key combination "Alt+F2" an type in "gnome-session-properties".
==>In the session properties windows,use add button.Give any name of your licking.In the command text-box you need to use "artha" in lower case as demonstrated below.Press "Save" button and from next boot the application will start automatically

Tuesday, 20 September 2011

This post attempts to explain a few things about Linux "Package Management" or "Software Installation/UN-Installation"[from the point of view of a typical windows user] .First thing a windows user should understand is that unlike windows where software is distributed in the form of installers,Linux based software is distributed in the form of packages and typically need other software packages to install properly .

Linux software /package management is typically comparable to that of a software repository system used by software developers to store source code,maintain different versions of the code and "build" a complete piece of software from the repository using some sort of a build tool.

A few terms one must know regarding package management:-

==>Package:-These are literally packages of various libraries.Usually contain pieces of source code or binaries and will usually contain meta data which will help in installation of the software.These are comparable to "jar" files in Java.Sample package names are "<SomeName>.deb","<SomeName>.rpm" etc

==>Binaries:- Readily executable pieces of code which are pre-compiled to suit a specific OS like ".exe" like in windows.

==>SoftwareRepositories:-These are more like "chest of drawers",each folder holds a bunch of software packages where your software is stored and can be typically accessed through FTP clients or your web browsers or by your Linux package managers

==>Source Packages:-Since most of the Linux software is open source i.e. anyone can actually view how the software you use is written and also extend its functionality to suit your own use / tastes.Linux junkies typically "build" their software using the source packages.For new users there are always ready-made software packages that can be easily installed :-).

==>Package Managers:-These are the tools , software that are used rather invoked to actually install" your software packages.Modern package managers are capable of installing, un-installing, verifying, querying, and updating various software packages.The package managers can be broadly classified into

Command line tools(zypper in case of openSUSE ,dpkg in case of debian based systems).

GUI based tools(YaST in case of openSUSE,Synaptic in ubuntu)

==>Pre-requisites:-These are usually libraries, binaries that are usually needed by the software package you are trying to install to work properly . Dependencies are of many types like :-

Software libraries are collections of utilities used by the software.

Command line tools with no GUI.Sometimes these dependencies are command line tools / software which are "complete" in all aspects except for the fact that they don't have good user interface or poor user interface or don't have an user interface at all.An example to prove this case is "winff" which is a popular media conversion tool is a GUI wrapper built around another full fledged media conversion command line based tool called "ffmpeg"

Plug-ins which extend the functionality of the software you are installing.

==>Versioning:- Versioning plays a important part in software/package management in Linux that it not only defines which is the latest as well as newer piece of software but also tightly couples a software to its dependencies , so that installation of the required software is typically not allowed by the package manager until all dependencies are installed.

==>Types Of Software Repositories:-
Based on ownership of the packages in the repository the Linux repositories may be broadly classified as:-

Official :- These repositories have stable and packages are well tested , and the packages are versioned appropriately to provide a optimised environment even for "new" users. They are almost always hosted by enterprise which distributes the Linux distro.

Unofficial or Community repos:- These repositories are not maintained by the enterprise distributor. The software in these repositories are packaged(rpm and deb) and maintained by the community that "Love" the distro and sometimes by companies which offers some specialised products. Sometimes these repositories get official branding when they become popular. Typically when they receive such branding the packages in these repositories get moved or copied to a different FTP folder. The downside of installing software from these repositories is that they are not always well maintained and tested and in general donot follow the versioning pattern for packages followed by the parent distro . New users must thread carefully when playing with these repos.

Due to partial adherence of GNU concepts by the distros we tend to find two kinds of repositories namely:-

Based on the updation frequency of the packages we can classify the repositories into:-

Base repos:- These repos are rarely updated .The packages here are typically built when a new version of OS/distro is released .

Update repos:- All subsequent updates to packages are moved to the end user community through the "update" repos an not through the base repos. Hence we latest package of Libreoffice in update repos and not in base repos

Based on the stability of the software packages present in them the repos are classified as:-

Stable repos:- Here well tested packages and fit for daily use are present.

Unstable repos:- Here partially tested packages are generally present. These repos are typically called Test repos and in case of openSUSE the repos tend have a colon ":" in their URL .Factory repos are a type of opensSUSE repos which contain packages which are typically going to be present in future releases.

Saturday, 17 September 2011

Recently when i mistyped facebook url as faceboo.com in my browser , to my surprise it took me to facebook.com.How uncool is that ?"faceboo" sounds like a fake facebook site. It also sounds like facebook is getting booed.May be facebook guys recognized this and bought the domain too to prevent misuse.From a layman perceptive it awesome as it reduced my daily typing effort by one word :-).On the otherhand people who don't like facebook can hit faceboo.com and start booing it :-)
Update:- http://facebok.com/ is also "facebook" .Guess in future every url will lead to facebook just like "All roads lead to Rome"

Thursday, 15 September 2011

State-owned oil firms may have to raise petrol prices by as much as Rs 3 per litre as the rupee touched two-year low against the US dollar, increasing the cost of importing crude oil.
"Oil retailers are losing Rs 2.61 per litre or Rs 15 crore per day on sale of petrol. Together with local taxes, the hike needed to level domestic rates with international prices is about Rs 3 per litre," a top government official said.
Source:- Petrol prices may go up by Rs 3 a litre | IOC | BPCL | The New Indian Express

Sunday, 11 September 2011

Interpals* has issued red corner notice for apprehending the alleged assailant and terror suspect .Interpals has released the above mug shot of the alleged repeat offender who has been avoiding the internal security agencies dragnet for the past zillion months.

This picture is from the time he was in custody of Mosqstatpol** when he was just a minor thug.He had reportedly escaped from custody by bribing the guards and nibbling a hole through the mosquito net.

The criminal nicknamed "Lizzam" also known in close circles as "The Gecko" and "Silver Tongue" has been spotted in the past lazing around on window sills,scurrying around on walls of houses,barks of trees and places his sticky padded feet takes him.Lizzam is considered to be armed and dangerous and a potential threat all species of insects . He is known to posses the Quickest Tongue in the Wild-Wild West.He is also rumoured to be the homicidal killer and usually stalks his prey and finishes them off in one swipe of his long tongue.

All the insects have been henceforth been asked to report sightings of above criminal immediately to Interpals through a hundred digit international toll free hotline number [001345454545454545654565695...]

His name featured recently in a spate of incidents some of which are listed below:-
==>Sneaking into bathrooms and Peeking at humans who are bathing.
==>Para-trooping from the ceilings and landing on heads of humans and sending them to deaths [ popular belief among humans in some parts of the world]
==>Gobbling up those pesky flies whole and all
==>Pulling out and chewing at the legs of grasshoppers
==>Tearing off the inattentive miss cockroach and eating her up . Eye witnesses claim that the poor miss cockroach was squealing trying to escape the clutches of evil villain.
==>Many unfortunate mayflies were caught in crossfire during a fierce tongue fight between Lizzam and fellow law offender Chameleon
==>He has been known to commit heinous crimes like raiding ant caravans pick up random individuals and snack on his hapless victims that too in in broad day light

Meanwhile in a related development HI*** has moved a petition and collected a million signatures seeking repeal of the "red corner" notice.Millions have poured onto the streets calling for repeal of the dastardly act of Interpals.A spokesperson of the above association has given us exclusive information stating that gecko has as a matter of saved millions of humans by chewing up dewy gewy cockroaches and gobbling up blood sucking mosquitoes by the tons

*After about 1 minute to 5 minutes
==>Begins to process the news (Thought)

*After about 6 minutes to 15 minutes
==>Talk about in detail with family or friends{awful,shouldn't spare the perpetrators,feel bad for the victims,blah...}(Action)
==>Feels relieved that he or she or his/her family or friends were nowhere near the blast site(Thought)

*After about 20 minutes
==> Thinks about the task one was doing before hearing the news(Thought)

*After about 25 minutes
==>Feels bad that the police forces,National Investigation Agency (NIA), RAW , CBI , Army Intelligence , and other myriad unknown security forces [damn they are too many of them !!!] had failed to prevent various attacks in the past as well the latest ones.(Thought)
==>Wonders as to how many such attacks have been happening recently (Thought)
==>Feels that tax payer's money is going down the drain(Thought)

*After about 1 day when the investigative findings start pouring in
==>Takes special interest in the news daily that is often lies about abandoned on the floor of the living room for most of the week (Action)
==>Feels that there is some progress in the investigation and guilty must be punished after readings about the front page of the daily(Thought)
==>Feels that adequate security is needed where people congregate {there are too many damn places like that in his/her own city},almost impossible to provide adequate security at each of the locations.(Thought)
==>Feel that the busy localities in the country should be covered by security cameras(Thought)

*After about 6 months to 12 months when the next bomb blast occurs
==>[Copy paste the above para]

Saturday, 3 September 2011

Beware Folks :- Today I received a fake "Facebook Mail"/"Friend Request" notification.Your presence on Facebook is being leaked and even your email id you provided on Facebook is not safe.Facebook should look into the leakage of email ids to third party without express consent from Facebook users.The application which sent this mail was smart enough to know the email id I use to login into Facebook and mail me a fake friend request

How To Detect fake
There is a easy way to recognise these mails.First take a look at the "From" ,"Reply-To" and "To" addresses in the email header.In my case it claims to originate from "facebookmail" domain and reply to is "LinkedIn" and it is not addressed to my id but some fictional/fake email id. If you want to confirm that it is definitely not an invite then go and login into Facebook and check
for invite notification.Never click links in such fake mails.This will compromise your system.

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